The Theme of the Double and Creativity in Vincent van Gogh

Meissner, W. W.

doi:10.1080/00107530.1994.10746856

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…Gedo , 1996; William James and Gertrude Stein (Silver 1996); psychological elements in the plays of Ibsen (Rotenberg and Rotenberg 1996), Strindberg (Burnham 1996), Tennessee Williams (Rothenberg 2004), and Eugene O'Neill (Dimitrijevic 2005); photographic portraits of the young Truman Capote (Solomon 2005); and Pasolini's film Salo (Salvage 2005). So too were newer themes embraced: the double (Meissner 1994), the secret sharer (Glenn 1995), mirrors in art (Schneider 1985), artist and model (Miller and Rose 2005), the covert message (M. Gedo 1999), the psychical function of self-portraits in physical (Frieda Kahlo) and psychological (van Gogh, Egon Schiele) pain (Knafo 1991a,b), and the function of art as witness, a "necessary illusion" (Rose 1996). Topics were examined now from new and multiple angles: Gaudi's many aspects (Roughton 1998), feminist undertones (Zerbe 1992), psychology affecting literature (Silver 1996), multiple meanings in a Giacometti sculpture (Wilson 1999), the impact of psychoanalysis on creativity (Mahon 1996).…”

Section: Eclectic Pluralism: 1990 To the Presentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Silent Cries, Dancing Tears

Aragno¹

2011

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

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Against the backdrop of a broad survey of the literature on applied psychoanalysis, a number of concepts underpinning the metapsychology of art are revisited and revised: sublimation; interrelationships between primary and secondary processes; symbolization; "fantasy"; and "cathexis." Concepts embedded in dichotomous or drive/energic contexts are examined and reformulated in terms of a continuum of semiotic processes. Freudian dream structure is viewed as a biological/natural template for nonrepressive artistic forms of sublimation. The synthesis presented proposes a model of continuous rather than discontinuous processes, in a nonenergic, biosemiotic metatheoretical framework.

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Section: Eclectic Pluralism: 1990 To the Presentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Silent Cries, Dancing Tears

Aragno¹

2011

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

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“…In producing his art he could suffer, yet blunt, the power of his harsh, self-debasing conscience. Van Gogh's art, particularly his self-portraits, served his self-expression, his self-exploration, and his efforts at self-healing-a virtual art therapy (Meissner 1993(Meissner , 1994. Van Gogh once stated that he felt alive only before his easel.…”

Section: T H E S E L F -P O R T R a I T Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Van Gogh’s Fantasies of Replacement: Being a Double and a Twin

Blum

2009

J Am Psychoanal Assoc

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The replacement child, often given the name of the deceased, is prone to fantasies that he or she is the embodiment of the dead child. Vincent van Gogh was born one year to the day after a stillborn brother of the identical name, including the middle name, Willem. In the parish register van Gogh was given the same number twenty-nine as his predecessor brother. Van Gogh's fantasies of death and rebirth, of being a double and a twin, contributed to both his psychopathology and his creativity. The replacement theme in van Gogh's life and work is evident in his voluminous correspondence containing drawings and references to his art. His parents and his brother Theo are viewed as having shared a familial fantasy system. Van Gogh's self-portraits are regarded as relevant to his being a replacement child. No single fantasy or theme can account for the complexities of development, disorder, or creativity. Van Gogh's art was vastly overdetermined, including extraordinary endowment and the motivation of a replacement child to justify his survival, surpass his rival double/twin through great achievement, repair parental depression, and defy death through immortality.

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Creativity and Symbiosis in Vincent van Gogh

Meissner

1995

Contemporary Psychoanalysis

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The Theme of the Double and Creativity in Vincent van Gogh

Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

Silent Cries, Dancing Tears

Silent Cries, Dancing Tears

Van Gogh’s Fantasies of Replacement: Being a Double and a Twin

Creativity and Symbiosis in Vincent van Gogh

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